


No One

by cat_77



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Rey’s Parentage, Speculation, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 08:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13186602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: She was no one, a nobody from a nowhere planet.  Her family tried their very best to make certain of this.  The universe had other plans.





	No One

**Author's Note:**

> Speculation on Rey’s family. Written for the “forced marriage” entry at hc_bingo.
> 
> * * *

It wasn’t a simple life, or even a particularly easy one, but it was the only one she had, the only one she knew, and so she took it for what it was. If she happened to dream of something better, of something more, well, so did everyone at some point, or so she was told.

Her fondest memories were of visits to her aunt. It was not her real aunt and she knew she was not supposed to know this, but it was the sister of the woman who raised her, and that made it close enough. A quiet boring farm on a quiet boring planet, she would toddle around and try to stay out of the worst of the dust and sand and leave any actual work to the cousin that wasn’t actually a cousin, but treated her like family none the less. There would be snacks and treats and lectures on how the various machines worked to absorb moisture from the air and helped to sustain the little bit of life that they eked out on an otherwise less than hospitable world.

And then one day she was told that there would be no more visits to her aunt. The sweet lady and her rather boring but kind husband had died. She was told it was an accident, but heard others talking late at night and knew it was something more. A cruiser in orbit, explosions in the sky and on the sand, troopers suddenly everywhere while her would-be relatives were nowhere at all. She knew there was a larger story, or at least she hoped there was.

It wasn’t long after that particular mystery that she was to be married off. She protested that she didn’t want to, that she hadn’t even met the boy, didn’t know his family or anything about him. The man she called father assured her it was the son of a friend, that he was a quick thinker with high prospects. The woman she called mother took her aside in secret and whispered how she would be safer, that “they” could not trace her this way, that “they” may make the connection that her dear aunt had a sister, but would never look for an adoptive daughter that was already married and lived far away on one of the countless other planets.

She trusted her family even as she doubted her situation. Her new husband was not demanding, but rather indifferent to the whole thing. He treated her well enough, would ask her opinion on things even if his own mind was made up, and he always took her along to wherever his latest plans dictated. His prospects had been overstated, she learned that soon enough, but he tried hard and took every failure as a lesson to be learned from and to be improved upon.

The halfhearted and haphazard ceremony was three years’ past when she became with child. He was between jobs, but that never lasted long so she was not too concerned. He didn’t ask anything of her save for her to tell him if her current tasks were too difficult, and she took that to mean he accepted the child as inevitable, perhaps even as family. 

Unfortunately, job after job fell through. The galaxy, the Empire as a whole was in flux, and there was no telling where anything would stand at the end of the day let alone the end of several months’ worth of gestation. Her husband knew mechanics though, knew machines inside and out. Ships needed repair, a difficult thing when supply lines dried up. People far better trained than he were in demand for those specific tasks, but he knew where to get the parts they needed. A broken skiff may have a single piston that could be repurposed, a droid that spat out only gibberish still had servos and capacitors. You just had to know how to look for them, where to look for them, and where to make an offer that might feed your soon to be growing family.

Their daughter was born in a sandstorm. He tucked them both away in the empty shell of what might have been a fine ship at one point and trudged off to try to find a doctor or at least a medical droid that could check for any damage or lingering complications. She knew he used some of his personal stash of rations, just as she knew he returned without the small pendant his own mother had given him so long ago, the one he was careful not to let certain merchants see lest he be made a target.

Life went on. It wasn’t easy, especially with a tiny one in tow, but it was life. Other scavengers competed against them, the decent pieces growing fewer and father between. They ate though, had a roof over their heads even if it was just the shell of an old transport, and she did her best to teach her daughter both what she herself had been taught and what she needed to know to survive in an increasingly harsh universe. Any time she found literature, be it a book or tablet or instruction manual, she would read it out loud until there was no light left to read it by. She knew her husband was frustrated by it all, and probably by her as well, but they made the best life they could with what little was granted them.

Unfortunately, one thing was eventually granted to them in spades. Her husband found not only a large stash of liquor, but a still with enough working pieces to be usable. He would test his concoctions himself before he would dare to sell them. He told her it would be a lucrative business in a place like this. She saw the credits come in, actual credits mixed with rations mixed with trade, and had a hard time objecting. Even as she saw him taste more and more of his own offerings. Even as she saw him need more and more to stay calm and not lash out at what life had given them. He never laid a hand upon her, or upon their daughter, but there were other ways of being cruel and he made sure she knew it, made certain they knew of the burden that they made him carry.

The still was stolen but his love of drink was not. She caught him rummaging through the little tidbits she had set aside for their child, searching for something usable in his next grand plan. It hurt, that he would take from them in that way, even as she knew he would insist it was for a greater purpose, that it would give them a better life in the long run if he could continue his trade and hopefully fill their coffers once more.

It didn’t work and she wasn’t surprised. She could feel it, the unease of the galaxy itself creating the unease in the very family that she tried her best to contain. When the man came looking for what he called “gifted” children, watched her child perform what others in her age group could not, scanned her with a cracked and near ancient device for something he called “‘chlorians,” she fought the urge to hand her daughter over right then and there in hopes that maybe, just maybe, she would have a chance at being something greater than a glorified junk trader on a backwater planet.

The man must have sensed it within her, or possibly he simply watched the family struggle to get by. He did not leave, not immediately, and she found him at the depot the next time they attempted a trade. She had managed to get six rations and enough cloth for either a shirt for herself or a dress for her daughter for all of her effort. She could stretch the food though, make it last if needed. It usually was.

That’s when the man made his move. He promised that the girl would be well cared for, have enough to eat and even new clothing as she quickly grew. He promised the temple that served as a school would be safe, that the child would be granted the opportunities that she herself had been denied. Most importantly, he promised that she could return if needed, if wanted, if there was ever any doubt to her safety or purpose.

Still, she hesitated. She had been sent away from the Empire, even though she still felt its grasp on the tiny planet of sand and hardship in the middle of nowhere. A temple, a school, always drew attention. People yearned for knowledge and wanted to know more about those who obtained it even if they themselves were denied it. It would grant her child a chance at a better life, but at the same time grant her a chance at something far worse than an unrelenting sun and the occasional need to tighten her belt.

In the end, the decision was taken away from her, as was her child. Her husband, already ill from his latest creation, was offered both medicine which was near impossible to find as well as the missing filter for his new still and bio-encryption to make certain it would only work for the two of them. It would save his life, give them the chance at the near prosperity both had only gotten a glimpse of in their many years of hardship, and the price was solely the opportunity for their child to have what they themselves would never be able to give her.

She relented. She gave her only daughter over to the very people her dear Uncle Owen had told her never to trust. Beru’s words stuck with her though, of how things were always connected, of how sometimes you had to trust beyond your own experiences and simply believe the universe had a plan to make things right again.

She hugged her daughter tightly, made her promise to be brave, told her how much she loved her. And then she let her go.

As she watched the stranger drape a robe over the child, made of finer cloth than she could hope for finding in a place like this and identical to the one he himself wore, she heard him ask, “And who will I have the pleasure of traveling with today?”

She saw her husband open his mouth, his standard response on the tip of his tongue. It was ingrained in him, even if it was a lesson their child refused to learn. He would say she was no one, that they were nobody, no risk, just faces in the obedient crowd. He swore it protected them even if it might limit their opportunities at times.

Bright and loud and unassuming as ever, her daughter replied before he had the chance. “My mother calls me Rey,” she said with a decisive nod.

“That’s a good name. A name with promise,” the man said, and she only hoped he spoke the truth.

 

End.


End file.
